Around the globe, people are cultivating food, harnessing energy and building communities using methods that have the combined potential to reverse global warming.
Scaling up these methods would not only stop greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere; it could actually draw more carbon dioxide back into the Earth’s reserves than the sum of all emissions.
The result goes beyond climate stabilization and mitigation. This drawdown could reverse our planet’s disastrous course toward climate catastrophe.
That’s according to a coalition of nearly 200 researchers, scientists, economists, biologists, climatologists and other relevant experts behind the book “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.”
At 240 pages, the plan to save the world might not seem as comprehensive as the book’s title would suggest, however the research and calculations behind each solution are immense.
Released on April 18, it’s also the first plan of its kind. Never before has anyone calculated the cumulative impact of implementing a broad range of solutions on such a massive scale.
With colorful photographs and on-the-ground examples of where and how each method is already being utilized, the book lays out the 80 most effective and economically viable solutions to climate change.
Each method is ranked according to how much CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases it has the potential to avoid or sequester by 2050.
The rollout of a comprehensive online database that will make additional data, tools and expanded models freely available to the global public has been delayed. In the meantime, each solution is summarized at drawdown.org, and interested parties can request data for each solution by filling out an online form available on the website.
The coalition behind “Drawdown” produced this plan with the hopes that individuals, communities and governments large and small would adopt the solutions contained within it.
Already, the Drawdown team has agreed to collaborate with the General Commonwealth of Nations to integrate solutions into the plans of its 52 member countries. Combined, these nations represent nearly one-third of Earth’s population and include Canada, Australia, U.K. and India. The U.S. is not a member.
While many of the team’s top methods, such as wind turbines and solar farms, are widely recognized as necessary steps in addressing climate change, others are less obvious.
For example, if business travelers attended meetings electronically rather than physically, it would save nearly 2 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions and $1.3 trillion in travel expenses over 30 years.
The book highlights a company with offices in Prague and Toronto that uses a two-wheeled scooter with an attached tablet to send its employees between offices. The screen on the tablet displays the face of a visiting virtual guest who can remotely control the scooter to tour the facility and meet face-to-face with other staff.
Another solution is bioplastic. According to “Drawdown,” plastic production is expected to triple by 2050, and today almost all of it is petro-plastic, made from fossil fuels. But experts estimate 90 percent of plastics could be made from other sources, such as plant derivatives, instead. If bioplastic production was scaled to account for 49 percent of the market by 2050, it would avoid 4.3 gigatons of emissions.
The book’s editor and initiator, prominent environmentalist Paul Hawken, admits that while these are the most plausible methods for achieving drawdown, not all of them are ideal.
That’s because in maintaining objectivity, the coalition included the practices that have the most greenhouse-gas-reducing ability, whether they liked them or not.
Instead, they evaluated each potential solution by asking whether it was currently available and scaling, if it was economically viable, if it had the ability to significantly reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, if there were data available to model it to a global scale, and if the positive benefits outweighed any negative results.
That’s how nuclear energy came in at No. 20. If it remains on its current growth path, the Drawdown team estimates, nuclear power plants will avoid about 19 gigatons of CO2 emissions by 2050. Reliance on the hazardous energy source is also projected to peak and then decline within that timeframe.
At No. 34, biomass energy was deemed necessary for transition away from fossil fuels but would eventually need to be phased out and replaced with cleaner energy sources. Biomass energy is created when pellets made from leftover logging slash are burned.
Overall, however, most of the solutions outlined in the book are environmentally and socially beneficial, from water-saving irrigation systems and protecting old-growth forests to reducing global meat consumption and closing the gender gap in agriculture.
The plan’s authors used only peer-reviewed data and were conservative in their predictions of how quickly methods could be expanded and the impact the expansions would have. For example, to calculate the benefits of hybrid vehicles, they estimated market growth to reach just 6 percent by 2050.
Hawken has focused much of his career on the relationship between business and the environment. He’s published several books promoting a sustainable global economy, and many of the solutions outlined in “Drawdown” have already proved their economic feasibility.
The book concluded that over the course of 30 years, it would cost more money to continue with the status quo than it would to scale up the implementation of the top 80 methods.
Omitted from its cost calculations, however, are two of the most critical solutions: educating women and family planning. The book stated it would be inappropriate to monetize these entries because they are human rights.
If combined, these two intertwined elements of the plan would take the No. 1 spot with 119.2 gigatons of CO2 equivalent emissions avoided. That’s because when girls and women are educated and have access to family planning, they have fewer children.
An excerpt from the “Women and Girls” chapter explains:
“Carbon footprints are a common and comfortable topic. How many feet are leaving their tracks is not, due largely to concerns that linking family planning with environmental health is inherently coercive or cruel – Malthusian in the worst sense. However, when family planning focuses on healthcare provision and meeting women’s expressed needs, empowerment, equality, and well-being are the goal; benefits to the planet are side effects.”
The solution that can avoid the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions might surprise you. Refrigerant management was ranked as the No. 1 solution, with 89.7 gigatons of reduced CO2 equivalent emission averted.
According to “Drawdown,” the chemicals in your refrigerator and air conditioner, known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are the most potent greenhouse gases known to man. They’re 1,000 to 9,000 times worse than CO2 when it comes to their ability to warm the atmosphere, depending on their composition.
The percentage of households around the world that have air-conditioning units has been increasing for years, and as temperatures rise, the use of air-conditioning is soaring.
As the plan states, “a great irony of global warming is that the means of keeping cool makes warming worse.”
FURTHER READING: Street Roots' ongoing coverage of climate issues
Because 90 percent of each unit’s emissions are released at end of life, proper disposal is key. HFCs can be deconstructed into non-warming agents or reused when carefully removed from old appliances by professionals. And 197 nations have agreed to an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that mandates they phase out these harmful chemicals by 2028, beginning with wealthier nations such as the U.S. in 2019.
Since the book’s release, Hawken has been touring the U.S. to promote it, with stops also planned in Paris and Oxford, England, in early May.
On April 20, he stopped at the Natural Capital Center in Portland for an event hosted by Ecotrust, where he explained to an audience of roughly 300 how the idea for the plan originated.
He said that in 2001, he began to ask experts if they knew what needed to be done to reverse global warming. No one seemed to have the answers. Twelve years later, alarming reports painted an even bleaker picture of Earth’s climate future, and yet the solutions remained elusive.
Even today, he said, with a quick Google search of “climate change solutions,” the top results list actions such as upgrading your electronics and moving closer to work.
“Move closer to work – people say, ‘I’ll do it, but it’s not going to make a difference,’” Hawken said. “People don’t see climate change as an opportunity.”
That paired with alarmist headlines about sea level rise, ocean acidification and the other devastating impacts of global warming, and the result, he said, is that people are left feeling helpless and guilty.
“Here we are, 40 years into the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, and we have no plan,” he said.
Not only was there no plan, but the goals of stabilizing carbon emissions and mitigating the impacts don’t go far enough.
“If you’re going the wrong way,” Hawken told the room, “you have to stop and turn around.”
That’s why the solutions outlined in “Drawdown” aim not only to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but also to take carbon out of the atmosphere and put it back in the Earth’s storage reserves, where it belongs.
“We can only bring it back through land use,” he told the room.
Turning idle landscapes into carbon sinking machines through afforestation and silvopasture and utilizing carbon-thirsty plants such as bamboo are just some of the land-use solutions on the list. Protecting tropical and old-growth forests and coastal wetlands is also crucial, according to the Drawdown team.
Every year, as spring and summer spread across the Northern Hemisphere, plants reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by about 6 to 7 parts per million as they sprout leaves and conduct photosynthesis. Hawken illustrated this point by showing a dramatic time-lapse video that showed how CO2 builds up in the Northern Hemisphere over the winter before it begins to draw down in May.
The Drawdown team forecast three possible scenarios their plan could take.
The earliest Earth could expect to see a decline in the overall accumulation of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere would be in 2045, according to the “Optimum Scenario.” This is the most aggressive scenario and would require 100 percent worldwide adoption of renewable energy by 2050.
On April 27, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon co-introduced a bill that would transition the United States to 100 percent clean and renewable energy by 2050. However, it’s largely symbolic because the Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to pass it.
FURTHER READING: Jeff Merkley: Oregon’s man of the hour
The team’s “Plausible Scenario” used a “reasonable yet optimistic” forecast for the solutions’ global growth rate. In this scenario, Earth would not achieve drawdown by 2050.
But, when the conservative bias is removed, the “Drawdown Scenario” has greater potential. In this scenario, transitional energy sources such as biomass, landfill methane and nuclear would still be in play in 2050, but electrical energy generation would be 100 percent renewable. While the team calculated drawdown of greenhouse gases would be possible, it said there are also too many unknowns to be certain.
How much carbon the oceans will continue to sequester as acidification increases and how much carbon forests will release if rising temperatures cause them to dry out are just two factors that will affect the outcome of the scenarios.
But emerging technologies and innovative ways of sequestering greenhouse gases that are as of yet undiscovered will also play a role.
Hawken ended his presentation at Ecotrust with a quote from the 2015 blockbuster movie “The Martian.”
The quote comes from Matt Damon’s character as he’s teaching future astronauts in a classroom setting. He tells them that when they go up into space, at some point, everything will go terribly wrong.
“You solve one problem, and you solve the next one, and then the next,” Damon told them. “And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”
After reciting the quote, Hawken looked out over his audience and said, “And that’s what we’re doing.”
Email staff writer Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org . Follow her on Twitter @GreenWrites .
Solutions will require action from everyone
Many aspects of Drawdown will require participation on an individual level, as well as from community leaders and governments. Here are ways you can take personal responsibility:
Refrigerants: It’s against U.S. federal law to improperly dispose of refrigerants. Go to oregonmetro.gov to find a list of recyclers in your area that will take your old air conditioning units, refrigerator or other appliances that contain coolants.
Diet: Eat less meat, especially beef. The average American eats 90 grams of protein per day, when 50 grams is the recommended allowance, according to “Drawdown.” Reducing global meat consumption is critical for the climate.
Food waste: Consumer behavior is crucial for reducing food waste , especially in countries such as the United States. Don’t throw away food just because the “sell by” of “best before” date has passed. These labels indicate peak flavor, not safety. Shop smart by planning meals, using a list and avoiding impulse buys. Be realistic about how much food your family will eat and plan a “leftovers” night each week. When you do have expired food, compost it.
Educate girls: It costs pennies a day to educate girls in countries such as Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Congo. Through International Rescue Committee, you can send a girl to school for an entire year for just $58, or support Tostan, Girls Not Brides and other organizations working to empower women.
Family planning: Support Planned Parenthood, and support politicians who support Planned Parenthood.
Transportation: You live in Portland, a city that makes biking, owning an electric vehicle and commuting with public transit much more convenient than it is in most U.S. cities. Time to get on board.
Activism: There are several proposed fossil fuel expansion projects in the Pacific Northwest that activists could use your help stopping. Go to 350pdx.org or PortlandRisingTide.org to find out more.
Energy: Visit Energy Trust of Oregon's website to learn how to make your home more energy efficient and about cash incentives for residential and commercial solar projects. In 2016, legislation passed in Salem will soon make solar more attainable for many households with a community solar program that’s still in the works. Households will be able to share the costs of installing solar projects with other grid users, and also share in the benefits. To save costs on your energy bill without a large upfront investment, qualifying lower-income households can get a free weatherization kit from Portland’s Community Energy Project. The nonprofit will resume weatherization workshops in the fall.
Top 10 solutions
According to the Drawdown team’s Plausible Scenario:
1. Refrigerant management
2. Onshore wind turbines
3. Reduced food waste
4. Plant-rich diet
5. Tropical forests
6. Educating girls
7. Family planning
8. Solar farms
9. Silvopasture
10. Rooftop solar
How heavy is a gigaton?
A gigaton is 1 billion metric tons.
That’s 166.66 million male Asian elephants, weighing an average of 12,000 pounds each.
Or, if the average, untrained man can deadlift 155 pounds, it would take 12.9 billion men to lift a gigaton.
In 2016, about 36 gigatons of carbon dioxide were emitted into Earth’s atmosphere.
